FINTECH

Received its European banking license in December 2018. Only now is it in place in Norway, as the last country in the EU and EEA.

In 2018, Revolut was one of the hottest in fintech. Not least in Norway, the British app bank was out in this country early, and the interest in establishing itself here was so great that the entrepreneur himself, Nik Storonsky, took the trip to Oslo to record a live podcast with Shifter – founder Lucas Weldeghebriel.

This is no longer the case. When Revolut today announces that the company has replaced its license as an e-money company in Norway with a genuine banking license exported from Lithuania, it is only in the form of a press release.

– By launching the bank in Norway, we will give our customers an increased level of security and trust, and make it possible for us to launch a number of new products and services in the future, was one quote from European CEO Joe Heneghan that the bank had now become a bank in Norway.

Questions without answers

Shifter was given the opportunity to ask Heneghan questions prior to the launch and sent written questions while a final launch date was set.

The hope was to be able to find out more about why Norway ended up being the very last country in the EU / EEA where the company became a bank? How many of the listed 90,000 Norwegian customers have done something more than just download the app and register? How important has the ability to handle been to be the customer base? And whether the bank had plans to increase activity with Norwegian customers?

No answer was ever returned.

Perhaps the interest in telling why the banking license in the Norwegian EEA comrade Liechtenstein was in place almost six months before Norway, and three and a half years after it was granted, was not at its peak.

Became increasingly anonymous

But it gives a pretty good picture of a company that has become increasingly anonymous in the Norwegian market.

► After a great start with over 10,000 customers in the first month, growth slowed down, and in the summer of 2019, Stefan Astroza and Peter Nybakk of Cicero Consulting stated that Revolut, despite all the attention, was no more than the size of Aurskog Sparebank.

► In the autumn of the same year, Espen Myklebust threw in the towel as Revolut’s man in Norway. After that, the company has a lot of representation in this country.

► At the turn of the year 2020-2021, the Nordic growth manager resigned and was not replaced. Around the same time, Revolut lost further cooperation agreements with the local bank that made it possible for customers to have a Norwegian account number.

Bank guarantee news

The most important thing in today’s message from Revolut is that it will now be part of a bank guarantee that secures deposits in the bank of up to 100,000 euros, approximately one million kroner.

To take part in it, customers must upgrade to Revolut Bank. According to the company, four million customers in Europe have done so.

It will also provide access to upcoming services such as loans and credit cards that are in place in Poland and Lithuania.

For Norwegian customers, however, the change does not mean that they will get Norwegian account numbers back. Even if you choose to upgrade to Revolut Bank, you have to settle for account numbers from Lithuania, which they received in the spring of 2021.

Perhaps not the biggest of competitive advantages, compared to competitor Lunar, which just makes a big point of being able to offer Norwegian account numbers and payments,